第144章

Moreover, that spiritual agony cannot be taken from them, for that suffering is not external but within them.And if it could be taken from them, I think it would be bitterer still for the unhappy creatures.For even if the righteous in Paradise forgave them, beholding their torments, and called them up to heaven in their infinite love, they would only multiply their torments, for they would arouse in them still more keenly a flaming thirst for responsive, active and grateful love which is now impossible.In the timidity of my heart I imagine, however, that the very recognition of this impossibility would serve at last to console them.For accepting the love of the righteous together with the impossibility of repaying it, by this submissiveness and the effect of this humility, they will attain at last, as it were, to a certain semblance of that active love which they scorned in life, to something like its outward expression...I am sorry, friends and brothers, that I cannot express this clearly.But woe to those who have slain themselves on earth, woe to the suicides! I believe that there can be none more miserable than they.They tell us that it is a sin to pray for them and outwardly the Church, as it were, renounces them, but in my secret heart I believe that we may pray even for them.Love can never be an offence to Christ.For such as those I have prayed inwardly all my life, I confess it, fathers and teachers, and even now I pray for them every day.

Oh, there are some who remain proud and fierce even in hell, in spite of their certain knowledge and contemplation of the absolute truth; there are some fearful ones who have given themselves over to Satan and his proud spirit entirely.For such, hell is voluntary and ever consuming; they are tortured by their own choice.For they have cursed themselves, cursing God and life.They live upon their vindictive pride like a starving man in the desert sucking blood out of his own body.But they are never satisfied, and they refuse forgiveness, they curse God Who calls them.They cannot behold the living God without hatred, and they cry out that the God of life should be annihilated, that God should destroy Himself and His own creation.And they will burn in the fire of their own wrath for ever and yearn for death and annihilation.But they will not attain to death....

Here Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov's manuscript ends.I repeat, it is incomplete and fragmentary.Biographical details, for instance, cover only Father Zossima's earliest youth.Of his teaching and opinions we find brought together sayings evidently uttered on very different occasions.His utterances during the last few hours have not been kept separate from the rest, but their general character can be gathered from what we have in Alexey Fyodorovitch's manuscript.

The elder's death came in the end quite unexpectedly.For although those who were gathered about him that last evening realised that his death was approaching, yet it was difficult to imagine that it would come so suddenly.On the contrary, his friends, as I observed already, seeing him that night apparently so cheerful and talkative, were convinced that there was at least a temporary change for the better in his condition.Even five minutes before his death, they said afterwards wonderingly, it was impossible to foresee it.He seemed suddenly to feel an acute pain in his chest, he turned pale and pressed his hands to his heart.All rose from their seats and hastened to him.But though suffering, he still looked at them with a smile, sank slowly from his chair on to his knees, then bowed his face to the ground, stretched out his arms and as though in joyful ecstasy, praying and kissing the ground, quietly and joyfully gave up his soul to God.

The news of his death spread at once through the hermitage and reached the monastery.The nearest friends of the deceased and those whose duty it was from their position began to lay out the corpse according to the ancient ritual, and all the monks gathered together in the church.And before dawn the news of the death reached the town.

By the morning all the town was talking of the event, and crowds were flocking from the town to the monastery.But this subject will be treated in the next book; I will only add here that before a day had passed something happened so unexpected, so strange, upsetting, and bewildering in its effect on the monks and the townspeople, that after all these years, that day of general suspense is still vividly remembered in the town.